The British poultry industry celebrated outstanding achievements and potential for excellence during the British Poultry Council Annual Awards at the House of Commons.

The winners of the 2013 British Poultry Council Awards.

The winners of the 2013 British Poultry Council Awards.

Food and Farming Minister George Eustice MP and BPC Chairman John Reed presented the awards, highlighting the unique contributions of each winner to the poultry industry.Farming Minister George Eustice said: “The poultry sector is a thriving part of the UK’s £96 billion agri-food industry. I strongly support BPC’s efforts to attract new talent and this year’s winners represent the wide ranging skills of the industry. Whether experienced specialists or newcomers to poultry farming, all winners have shown dedication and passion for their work.”The BPC Awards recognise years of distinguished service, contribution to marketing, potential for future excellence and support for the wider industry (see full list below).BPC Chairman John Reed highlighted the key role of the British poultry industry in career and skill development: “As an industry, we aim to attract, recruit, train, develop and retain quality people. The poultry industry is a significant force in the labour market and a first-rate employer. We already have successful training and scholarship programmes through the British Poultry Training initiative. Now, we need to focus on young people and make sure they understand that there are real prospects in the industry for them.”2013 BPC AWARD WINNERS
  • Nicholas Ham (BPC-Zoetis Young Trainee of the Year) farm manager at Cargill for his good attention to detail, excellent stockmanship skills and great development potential.
  • Laura Beeson (BPC scholarship) for her new and exceptional review of how diets and dietary enzymes reduce persistent gut inflammation and inflammatory responses in birds.
  • Natasha Whenham (BPC scholarship) for her outstanding PhD research project with ABagri which involved understanding the properties of novel anti-microbial peptides and proteins from eggs and testing these against a range of strains such as E. Coli and salmonella strains.
  • Stephen Povey (Marketing and Promotion Award) for his ‘over and above the call of duty’ service to the industry. On top of a challenging workload at PD Hook, Stephen has supported the industry with activities including a re-vamped Poultry Meat Conference and the Poultry Industry Golf Challenge among many others.
  • David Neilson (the new Mid-Career award) for his outstanding work as part of the Cranberry team in achieving industry leading results in the UK with laying flocks under his control winning 'flock of the year status' globally with each of the two breeding companies.
  • Pam Westwood (Distinguished Service Award) for her long, dedicated and passionate service to the poultry industry. She was an integral part of the Senior Management Team that took the Cranberry turkey business from strength to strength in the last ten years and an active member of the BPC Human Resources committee.
  • Steve Tweed (Distinguished Service Award) for his pivotal role within the poultry industry and at Cobb for over 20 years. Steve has provided technical hatchery support and expertise in all areas of modern incubation practices and has been dedicated to training hatchery managers and staff.
  • Graham Lord (Distinguished Service Award) for his dedication to the industry for over fifty years. He helped PD Hook develop into the largest independent hatchery in Europe and has been instrumental in developing and training new talents in the hatchery environment.

This story was originally published on a previous version of the Meat Management website and so there may be some missing images and formatting issues.